In the process of building the Socialist State under the rule of law in Vietnam, the team of lawyers has increasingly played a central role in protecting justice, human rights and legitimate interests of individuals and organizations. However, along with that development is a significant increase in occupational pressure, from competitive pressure, revenue pressure, professional responsibility pressure to digital transformation pressure. Meanwhile, the Draft Law on Lawyers (amended) in 2026 focuses mainly on raising practice standards, perfecting management mechanisms and strengthening professional ethics without mentioning the occupational health and mental health of lawyers as an independent and legally valid policy content. On the basis of a theoretical analysis of the relationship between occupational health and the quality of legal services and the effectiveness of justice administration, an assessment of the current situation of occupational pressure in Vietnam and a study of international experiences from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore, the paper points out four institutional gaps in the Draft and proposes a system of recommendations according to the the three layers of policies aim to develop a safe, healthy and sustainable legal practice environment as a constituent part of the policy of developing the legal profession in the socialist State under the rule of law.
The quality of the lawyers therefore has a direct impact on the efficiency of judicial activities, the quality of the business investment environment and the society's trust in the law.
1. Introduction
In any rule of law State, lawyers are always one of the most important subjects participating in protecting justice, protecting human rights, citizens' rights, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations in society. The quality of the lawyers therefore has a direct impact on the efficiency of judicial activities, the quality of the business investment environment and the society's trust in the law.
After nearly two decades of implementation, the Law on Lawyers in 2006 (amended and supplemented in 2012) has created an important foundation for the development of the Vietnamese legal profession. The team of lawyers has increased rapidly in both quantity and quality, participating more and more deeply in litigation, investment consulting, international trade, finance – banking, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), capital markets, personal data protection and many new legal areas arising from the digital economy.
However, along with that development comes a profound change in the practice environment: customers are becoming more and more professional; transactions are getting more and more complicated; the response time is getting shorter and shorter; the competition is getting fiercer; and technology, especially artificial intelligence, is fundamentally changing the way legal services are delivered. These changes bring many opportunities but at the same time create unprecedented occupational pressure on legal practitioners.
Meanwhile, the Draft Law on Lawyers (amended) in 2026 focuses mainly on contents such as lawyer standards, training and retraining, practice organization, professional management and practice ethics. These are all necessary and important contents. However, there are almost no regulations that mention the occupational health and mental health of lawyers as a factor affecting the quality of practice and the sustainable development of the legal profession.
This gap raises a fundamental question in terms of policy: whether it is possible to build a team of high-quality lawyers who meet the requirements of the rule of law, if the legal system is only concerned with lawyers being better, more professional and more responsible. without paying enough attention to the conditions for lawyers to maintain their practice capacity in the long term?
2. Theoretical basis: professional health of lawyers and quality of legal services
2.1. Occupational health of lawyers from the perspective of the Rule of Law State
In traditional studies of the legal profession, the quality of the team is assessed through professional qualifications, professional ethics, independence and professional responsibility. However, in the context of the increasingly complex legal profession, many international studies have shown that the ability to maintain the capacity to practice in the long term is also a core factor of professional quality.
A lawyer may possess a high level of expertise, but if they regularly work in a state of prolonged stress, burnout, or mental health impairment, the quality of their practice will be severely affected over time. This shows that the quality of lawyers does not only depend on the capacity formed through training, but also depends on the conditions that help lawyers maintain and promote that capacity throughout the practice process.
From this perspective, the professional health of lawyers is no longer a personal issue but a factor that has a direct impact on the quality of legal services and the quality of legal services is one of the conditions to ensure the implementation of justice and the protection of human rights in the Rule of Law State. Therefore, protecting the occupational health of lawyers should be considered as a content of the policy to develop the legal profession, not just an occupational welfare policy.
Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW dated 09/11/2022 of the Central Executive Committee on continuing to build and improve the Socialist State under the rule of law in Vietnam has defined the task of "developing a contingent of lawyers sufficient in quantity and ensuring quality". Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW dated April 30, 2025 of the Politburo on renewing the development and implementation of laws also sets requirements to improve the quality of legal human resources. These policy orientations open up space for the Draft Law on Lawyers (amended) to approach occupational health as a constituent part of the legal profession development strategy.
2.2. Occupational health and quality of legal services
The legal profession is a profession with a very high intensity of intellectual labor. The quality of work directly depends on the ability to research, analyze, assess risks, formulate strategies and make decisions under conditions of asymmetric information and time pressure.
Studies in occupational psychology show that prolonged stress and occupational burnout can significantly impair concentration, judgment quality, and information processing capacity. For the legal profession, the consequences of this decline can be severe: a missed procedural deadline can result in the loss of the right to sue; an inadequately reviewed contractual clause can give rise to major damages; A careless legal opinion may affect a client's investment decisions or business strategy.
From a broader perspective, the occupational health of lawyers not only affects the practitioners themselves, but also directly affects the interests of clients and the effectiveness of the administration of justice. This is an important theoretical basis for considering occupational health as a content of the legal profession development policy, not just a problem of individual practitioners.
Unlike many developed countries with mature legal services markets, the legal profession in Vietnam is developing in the context of a rapidly expanding but not really balanced market.
3. The current situation of professional pressure and warning signs for the Vietnamese lawyer community
3.1. The practice environment is changing rapidly
The development of foreign investment, capital markets, cross-border M&A, digital economy, fintech and personal data protection has fundamentally changed the requirements for legal practitioners in Vietnam. Today's lawyers don't just need to understand the law; They also have to understand business, finance, technology, corporate governance and risk management at a deeper and deeper level.
In particular, the emergence of artificial intelligence is creating a double pressure on lawyers: both to quickly adapt to new technology so as not to fall behind, and to protect professional values such as independent legal judgment, professional responsibility and practice ethics that technology cannot replace. This pressure poses new mental health challenges that previous generations of lawyers have not faced.
3.2. Specific pressures of Vietnamese lawyers
Unlike many developed countries with mature legal services markets, the legal profession in Vietnam is developing in the context of a rapidly expanding but not really balanced market. This creates at least four specific pressure groups:
First, competitive pressure: the number of lawyers increases rapidly while the market is not developed accordingly, causing many lawyers, especially young lawyers, to devote significant time and resources to finding and retaining clients, instead of focusing entirely on expertise.
Second, revenue pressure: for many small and medium-sized law firms, which account for a large proportion of the structure of Vietnam's legal services market, the revenue of each lawyer has a direct impact on the organization's ability to maintain operations. This pressure can lead lawyers to accept workloads that exceed healthy limits.
Third, the pressure of digital transformation: the emergence of artificial intelligence legal tools and new legal service models forces lawyers to continuously learn and adapt, creating an additional cognitive burden while the practice time is not extended.
Fourth, social and media pressures: in cases that are sensitive or of public interest, lawyers are not only under pressure from clients but also from the media and social networks, a pressure that the previous generation of lawyers has hardly faced on a similar scale.
3.3. Data gaps but no lack of warning signs
Vietnam currently does not have a large-scale national study on the mental health and occupational pressure of lawyers. This in itself is an institutional gap that needs to be filled in the process of amending the Law on Lawyers.
However, even without official statistical data, practice has shown many worrying signs: many lawyers maintain a working schedule that lasts from early morning to late at night in large transactions or complex cases; many lawyers work continuously on weekends or during holidays; many cases have serious health problems after a long time of overwork; and the professional community has also witnessed unfortunate cases related to serious deterioration in health or mental crises during practice. These signs show that the problem of lawyers' occupational health needs to be recognized and addressed more systematically. Especially in the context that the legal profession in Vietnam has been quite a lot ago as well as there have been important changes to adapt to the new context.
Lawyer Nguyen Van Phuc
HM&P Law Firm
Submitted for the Scientific Conference in the Journal of Democracy & Law: https://danchuphapluat.vn/stores/customer_file/huyennt/062026/29/5.Tom-tat-cac-bai-viet-Hoi-thao-Luat-Luat-su-2026.pdf
